Your ideal fan controller

[Particle]

I'm looking for input on what your ideal fan controller would be. I'm working on a custom job for a friend who wants 4 independent fan channels, 8 temperature probes, and 4 pump speed inputs. He also wants a remote LCD that can display all the fan speeds, pump speeds, and output duty cycle for each fan. Finally, it will connect to his PC and let him manipulate fan speeds based on custom temperature curves that he can load into the controller, see the readouts on-screen, etc. He also wants it to be able to control his TECs--up to 60A.

So, if I'm going to have this basic design already, I was wondering what else people might want in a fancy fan controller. I may as well make a few extras if anyone wants one.

[WangChung]

Rheostat that can handle 1 amp per channel that doesn't look like crap.

And yes, 1 amp. I got Tornadoes to control.

[IFMU]

i'm an odd one with fan controllers. most either have too much or not enough of all the right things.
for me personally i'd be interested in this for a controller
1 - 8 fan connections (maybe more if i ever get a nice rig with water cooling going)
2 - ability to adjust the speed/rpm for each fan
3 - 6 temp sensors (cpu, chipset, video, case ambient and maybe other video cards if ever to actually run sli or xfire)
4 - LCD display - show each temp and fan speed at the same time (all of them at once) or option to view a single one
5 - change brightness of the LCD (and/or on and off)
6 - option to fit in an either 3.5" or 5..25" bay (obvious external for the LCD lol)
7 - the ability to set one (or more) of the temp probes into a water cool loop to watch the loops temps

think that's about it for me.. lol

[Particle]

@WangChung: 1A per fan isn't a problem, but I wouldn't be using a rheostat. I use PWM motor driver circuits instead. They would be fine even with a 5A fan and don't waste all that extra power as heat. As for aesthetics, that's not really my department. I'm an engineery guy.

@IFMU: It sounds like what I'm building will pretty much do what you're after already. Anything else?

[-X-hellfire]

I got two mCubed T-Balancer XL which can control 4 fanchannels each thus 8 fanchannels and it works kind of...

its software only support 4 fanchannels but you can install two instances of it and modify the registry to get it to work as I have.

The other thing is that the datacable for the top one in my big tower, Stacker T101, is way to short and while the manual states that you can add another one, which I have done, but it is to unstable and creates some erratic behavior if left on automatic via temperature curves so I have had it on manual for maybe 2 years.

It is expensive and lacks some of the features you requested

http://www.t-balancer.com/english/Modelle.htm

Well, cant really recommend it but it have alot of features.

[Particle]

Oh, heh, perhaps I wasn't clear in the OP. I'm *building* a fan controller that does that for a friend, not seeking one out. Thank you for taking the time to share, however.

[-X-hellfire]

Oh, heh, perhaps I wasn't clear in the OP. I'm *building* a fan controller that does that for a friend, not seeking one out. Thank you for taking the time to share, however.

Yeah, I saw it and all but thought it would difficult to do it yourself with fancurves and controlling it with a remote etc etc. so I shared my experience with a bought one from one of the best, feature wise. And they have put in alot of time and effort in design, software development, etc etc. but still its hard to make it work effortless.

[skeyo]

I'm curious how this is gonna look. How you gonna make software for it? Bdw I would like to see circuit of it ewb file would be good too.

[ZOMGVTEK]

My idea controller would have some sort of basic logic... It would include ambient temp, and CPU temp into its calculation, you set a target temp... It would slowly ramp the fan speed and hold the minimum speed required to maintain that temp. There would need to be a delay so that it isnt ramping all the time under light loads. Say, 10-30 seconds before it slowly starts to change. It would need to LOOK nice, have at LEAST 6 3 pin outs, possibly with different max PWM controlled speeds for each, and be able to handle 2+A per channel. No stupid buzzers, no crappy dim/uneven backlights, no cheap plastic... Preferably a black aluminum machined face with etched graphics, variable color backlight for picky users. And of course it has to have full manual control, preferably with physical dials, not some crappy LCD based interface. They wouldn't be directly varying the fan speed however, it would buffer your input, to softly ramp the fans rapidly to your desired speed while displaying target fan speed on the display. It should be able to auto-detect the minimum fan speed, and allow for manual calibration for picky speed sensors. Therefore, minimum on the dial would correspond to the slowest speed the fan can spin, and have a physical switch to kill the fan all together. One of these for each of the channels, of course. From the slowest speed, slammed to the highest speed, it should have a soft, pleasant sounding ramp, about 1-2 seconds. Also, a physical switch to both bypass the PWM and force all switched on fans to run at 100% would be nice... Possibly a integrated step up regulator to take the 12V rail up to a very well regulated 15V could be useful for some applications as well.

However, that sounds awfully expensive, but it would be one hell of a fan controller.

[Particle]

Will it be pretty? Probably not. I'm an engineer, not a graphic designer. As for making software for it, etc, that's my area. I'm a programmer and dabble in hardware design. I've got experience with communications to stuff I've built before from when I made an 8-channel digital logic analyzer. I've also got experience with PWM drive design, PCB design, amplifiers, and most of the other essentials required for a project like this. Don't worry about that part. I use FPGAs for my projects.

The diversity in what one person wants to the next is fairly apparent. I don't think there's a one size fits all here to be had. heh

[IFMU]

@IFMU: It sounds like what I'm building will pretty much do what you're after already. Anything else?

actually there is one other thing that would be a bit nice. on the LCD, i mentioned having it being capable of displaying 1 either temp or rpm or all of the temps and rpms at once. the additional thing that would be nice would be to be able to set it where you could set it on how many you'd want to display. so for example, say you don't have 8 fans in your rig so instead of having the LCD show the fans that aren't there, you could disable them from being displayed.

Will it be pretty? Probably not. I'm an engineer, not a graphic designer.

if you're interested i may be able to draw something up for you to use. granted with the LCD it won't have a lot of variables and would be pretty simple, but you could add in something so you can give it a lil bit o' life. lol

[blkexp98]

Did anything ever come of this?

[Particle]

There was quite a diversity in terms of what people wanted, so I never made a design targeted at this thread's posters. If you want something specific, blkexp98, I'm always glad to hear from you.